Amazingly all in a second the ugliness vanished from
the little face. Dartlingly like a bird the Child
swooped down and planted one large round kiss on the
Senior Surgeon’s astonished boot.

“Beautiful Father!” she cried, “I
kiss your feet!”

Abruptly the Senior Surgeon plunged from the step
and started down the walk. His cheek-bones were
quite crimson.

Two or three rods behind him the White Linen Nurse
followed falteringly. Once she stopped to pick
up a tiny stick or a stone. And once she dallied
to straighten out a snarled spray of red and brown
woodbine.

Missing the sound or the shadow of her the Senior
Surgeon turned suddenly to wait. So startled
was she by his intentness, so flustered, so affrighted,
that just for an instant the Senior Surgeon thought
that she was going to wheel in her tracks and bolt
madly back to the house. Then quite unexpectedly
she gave an odd, muffled little cry, and ran swiftly
to him like a child, and slipped her bare hand trustingly
into his. And they went on together to the car.

With his foot already half lifted to the step the
Senior Surgeon turned abruptly around and lifted his
hat and stood staring back bareheaded for some unexplainable
reason at the two silent figures on the piazza.

“Rae,” he said perplexedly, “Rae,
I don’t seem to know just why—­but
somehow I’d like to have you kiss your hand to
Aunt Agnes!”

Obediently the White Linen Nurse withdrew her fingers
from his and wafted two kisses, one to “Aunt
Agnes” and one to the Little Crippled Girl.

Then the White Linen Nurse and the Senior Surgeon
climbed up into the tonneau of the car where they
had never, never sat alone before, and the Senior
Surgeon gave a curt order to his man and the big car
started off again into—­interminable spaces.

Mutely without a word, without a glance passing between
them the Senior Surgeon held out his hand to her once
more, as though the absence of her hand in his was
suddenly a lonesomeness not to be endured again while
life lasted.

Whizz—­whizz—­whizz—­whirr—­whirr—­whirr
the ribbony road began to roll up again on that hidden
spool under the car.

When the chauffeur’s mind seemed sufficiently
absorbed in speed and sound the Senior Surgeon bent
down a little mockingly and mumbled his lips inarticulately
at the White Linen Nurse.

“See!” he laughed. “I’ve
got a text, too, to keep my courage up! Of course
you look like an angel!” he teased closer and
closer to her flaming face. “But all the
time to myself—­to reassure myself—­I
just keep saying—­’ Bah! She
’s nothing but a Woman—­nothing but
a Woman—­nothing but a Woman’!”

Within the Senior Surgeon’s warm, firm grasp
the White Linen Nurse’s calm hand quickened
suddenly like a bud forced precipitously into full
bloom.